Thread: natural beryl?Any idea what is it?

Originally Posted by Kees

Thanks to on line dictionaries I now know what xtls and vugs are.

For 250 $$ you can buy a vintage Escher or a beryl hone. I'll stick to the former for my honing.

And what if, ya already have alot of vintage Eschers, but no Beryl hone? LOL.
I think Sham just wants to add some color to his massive collection...Beryl, is kindof a xmas-y color, no?
Beautiful hone Sham...ive seen it on ebay for some time...even added it to my watch list for awhile.
Be cool to hear how it hones.

Many thanks,

Mac

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Emerald, aquamarine are all gem varieties of beryl. The stuff is massive and usually mined in Pegmatite Quarries. There are no xtls in the massive stuff like say a coticule
.......
.

If I had to make an educated guess from the picture
I would call this a "Chlorite rich quartzite". If it is, it
would hone a lot like a black Arkansas or perhaps a
translucent Arkansas hone. The green chlorite mica
may help keep the grain size of the quartz fine and
available as a cutting media.

I do hope someone with a lot of comparison hones gets to try
one of these. The differences between the possible mineral
compositions are large. However, that does not matter
when the proof is how good a hone it makes.

P.S: I do not think the green is kryptonite which would fog
old style film but who knows in this digital world

IMO, that's a pretty big gamble (he says he has 10 now, maybe make an offer?), but then again, I don't have HAD...

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

If I had to make an educated guess from the picture
I would call this a "Chlorite rich quartzite". If it is, it
would hone a lot like a black Arkansas or perhaps a
translucent Arkansas hone. The green chlorite mica
may help keep the grain size of the quartz fine and
available as a cutting media.

I do hope someone with a lot of comparison hones gets to try
one of these. The differences between the possible mineral
compositions are large. However, that does not matter
when the proof is how good a hone it makes.

P.S: I do not think the green is kryptonite which would fog
old style film but who knows in this digital world

Its very difficult to tell most minerals from just looking at them. But if it was quartzite it would have a grainy appearance if you had a rough surface. Beryl is totally different and comes in all shades of green and other colors too.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Its very difficult to tell most minerals from just looking at them. But if it was quartzite it would have a grainy appearance if you had a rough surface. Beryl is totally different and comes in all shades of green and other colors too.

Yes it is very difficult to tell just by looking.
And as a long time field geologist I know
that quartzite, chert and flint can come in all
shades of color, texture and grain size.

It is a beautiful stone no matter what it is.

I used to polish my gravers on a small Beryl slab - worked perfectly. I now prefer ruby for my gravers.

Originally Posted by Alchemist

I used to polish my gravers on a small Beryl slab - worked perfectly. I now prefer ruby for my gravers.

Any chance of a pic or two? I'd like to see those stones.

I thought sharing my experience with the beryl sharpening stone might help someone (as your hints on this forum help me).
I wouldn't even have looked at it if wasn't asked to sharpen a problem knife you see on the photo. The knife is heavily etched and previous sharpening brought the cutting edge to the very etching, better seen on the close-up photo.
The edge looked even, but was blunt, hardly shaving forearm, and tearing paper. As per the manufacturer, the blade is of "French High Carbon Z60 steel".




Because of the etching I had little room for resharpening and no room for experimenting. I went through my stones looking for one that would be agressive enough to form a burr, fine to cut off bare minimum of metal, and hard not letting abrasive particles dragged onto the etching in fear of scratches; ideally it should have been cutting, polishing and producing no slurry all-in-one.

I picked Translucent Arkansas and Spyderco ultra fine ceramic bench stone.

I hardly started with the Translucent Arkansas, when noticed it gave a mat surface to the edge, encroaching upon the decorative etching; should I have continued, I risked grinding off the bottom of the engraving.

I switched to the Spyderco ultra fine ceramic stone, which is finer than Translucent Arkansas, and it seemed to be both cutting and polishing well. I formed the burr alright, but to my surprise couldn't thin it off; I tried again from start, but as soon as I began alternating blade sides to thin off the burr, it just dulled the edge.

It must have been due to the 'Z60 metal' used in the blade, as I am regularly using ultra fine ceramic for thinning off the burr on other carbon steels, Muela molybdenum-vanadium and damascus.

Puzzled, I searched for another hard ultra fine stone (and BTW that's how I found your forum) and decided to give Beryl a try. The eBay seller 'merlintools' wanted for the biggest beryl stone about $270, but took my offer of $200. With natural stones, the bigger the stone, the better is its quality. I also bought a smaller one for lapping, but this wasn't needed. The stone I got required no lapping, though its surface had circular saw marks which you probably are able to see on the photo, of no effect on sharperning.


"Natural Beryl Polishing Stone Graver Sharpening Tool"

To maintain even angle, I used the stone on a wooden wedge, the idea borrowed from this guy on youtube:
Sharpening II 012 - YouTube